USA Africa Dialogue Series - Tunde Fatunde Collection

A huge gift of a smile came through the post today to remind me of my meeting of Professor Tunde Fatunde when I was completing the Nigerian Youth Serving Capitalism (National Youth Service Corps) program at Bendel State University, Ekpoma. He was there to hear the legendary Labor Leader, Michael Imoudu, give a rousing commencement speech on the occasion of being awarded an honorary doctoral degree. I sat beside Tunde and was embarrassed when I stood for the National Pledge while he sat defiantly only to spring to his feet when the National Anthem came up. Afterwards, he read my poem against apartheid and changed the title from 'All Men Must be Men' to 'All Humans Must be Human' and it was later published in The Guardian. I asked him for the option to produce one of his plays that I had just been given by Frank Mowah to read. He said that he had an unpublished play that I might be interested in producing. I got the students to form a Guerrilla Theater club and they rehearsed and put on the play in the Cafeteria. Tunde came to the premiere on May 4, 1986, with Abdul Oroh, a journalist and later a national legislator, who promised to review the production. When the review failed to materialize, I offered my own review of the show that I produced and directed and it was published in the Sunday Observer on 29 June 1986 with the title, 'An Indelible Portrait of Nigeria'. I tried to direct the play for Nigerian Television Authority in Benin but the estimated production costs went beyond the fifty naira that we collected as gate fees at the premiere. Recently, I friended Tunde on Facebook and reminded him that his plays deserve to be produced by Nollywood. He agreed and put me in touch with Professor Femi Shaka at the University of Port Harcourt who also produced his plays as a student and who now teaches Film Studies. Tunde also arranged to send me a 2006 copy of the bulky collection of his plays (CraftBooks, Ibadan) and I was pleasantly surprised to see that my premiere production of Oga Na Tief Man was acknowledged along with my review of the production. I smile because this brings back memories of my undergraduate days when I directed a Royal Theater Company with Uluakanwa Oko to entertain villagers; wrote radio plays for the Anambra State Radio Playhouse produced by Emeka Agbakoba; and went on to direct one of my own plays for NTA Enugu with Charlie Ugwu as the Producer. I am being reminded that there is still work to be done in this area. 'No More Oil Boom'!